South Africa’s migration from analogue to digital terrestrial television (DTT) could be delayed by three years if broadcasters and the Department of Communications (DoC) failed to fast-track a decision on conditional access control over subsidised set-top boxes (STBs).

The DoC, which was appealing the South Gauteng High Court’s decision in December to grant conditional access control to broadcasters instead of DoC-appointed Sentech, said on Tuesday that the matter needed to be dealt with urgently or the country would miss its migration deadline.

Under an agreement with the International Telecommunications Union, South Africa has until 2015 to complete the migration, after which analogue broadcasting frequencies’ exclusivity, or protection, will be lifted, resulting in signal interruptions.

A STB decoder would be required for terrestrial broadcasting transmission signals; however, the awarding of a tender for the STBs, and the subsequent manufacture and distribution, was halted until the legal matter was resolved.

Following a court-ordered meeting between the department, State-owned broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), and free-to-air broadcaster e.tv, besides others, the broadcasters agreed to submit recommendations on the continuation of the STB tender and the delivery of the STBs to the market to the DoC by January 28.